February 2024

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Legislative Update

By Haley Nolde

Our Executive Director, Haley Nolde, testified in opposition of LB 1413 at a hearing Tuesday, Jan. 30th in Lincoln. Sections 26-29 of the bill aim to transfer a total of $3 million from the Waste and Litter Reduction and Recycling Funds into the General Fund. Many of our members, partners, and friends are beneficiaries of the grant projects made possible by these programs. Additionally, the $495 million economic impact of recycling in Nebraska is catalyzed largely through grants.

Over 3 dozen online comments were submitted in opposition and several in-person testimonies. NRC will release further information as we work on this matter! If you have questions or concerns please reach out to Haley at director@nrcne.org.

Durable Medical Equipment Collection and Rehome Events

Senior man with white hair and yellow jacket riding motorized wheelchair

By Allison Majerus

Do you or someone you know have durable medical equipment in storage at home? Are you in need of some durable medical equipment? Thanks to grant funding from the Nebraska Environmental Trust and in partnership with the Assistive Technology Partnership, Keep Omaha Beautiful, the City of Kearney, Keep Scottsbluff/Gering Beautiful, Independence Rising, and the Methodist Equipment Loan Program, the Nebraska Recycling Council will be hosting a series of four collection/rehome events for large durable medical equipment. The events will take place in Scottsbluff, Kearney, Lincoln and Omaha to reuse and recycle DME and divert DME from the landfill in 2024 and 2025.

The Nebraska Recycling Council is committed to increasing access to recycling services and resource for all Nebraskans. This project is a unique opportunity to assist disabled Nebraskans and their families while providing an opportunity to divert hard-to-recycle materials from the landfill. We are in the planning stages and specific event details will be announced soon. There will be a timeframe for the public to donate DME in each city and a day for the public to bring DME home for their use. Any unusable DME and batteries will be recycled by a contracted recycler. Remaining usable equipment after the rehoming events will be donated to local equipment loan programs for the use of the local disability community.

Please stay tuned for more details as we confirm dates and locations for the four events! We welcome local partners, volunteer assistance and promotional help in the four locations. If you have questions or would like to get involved, please contact Program Director Allison Majerus at amajerus@nrcne.org.

Call for Committee Members!

The Nebraska Recycling Council is developing Municipal Waste Reduction Toolkits in 2024 and looking for participation from industry professionals. We value input from the subject matter experts around the state who divert material from the landfill. NRC is able to provide this resource to Nebraska communities through funding from the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy.

If you’d like to join the group please reach out to Haley at director@nrcne.org.

Did You Know?

By Maddie Ferber

Old clothing and textiles can be recycled! In December of last year NRC published a report on textile waste and recycling, highlighting some of the exciting work being done in Nebraska to reduce waste, and improve recycling technology and systems.

Currently, textile waste poses a big problem - and opportunity. Over the last 15 years clothing sales have doubled globally, meanwhile nearly three fifths of all clothing winds up in the landfill or incinerator within a year of production. That adds up to 17 million tons of waste a year in the US alone! Unfortunately, the material in the landfills and incinerators is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to textile waste. The fashion industry is responsible for major contributions to water pollution and carbon emissions. In their report, The Biomimicry Institute found that 35% of all plastic microfibers in the oceans come from textiles.

Woman holds up clothing to look at in front of massive pile of clothes

Right now in the US, textiles are recycled at about 15%. However, only 1% of recycled textiles are made back into new clothing. While textiles can diverted from landfills and made into amazing new products, there are major challenges preventing closed loop recycling of textiles.

insulation block made of recycled blue jeans laying on floor in front of open wall framing

Most fabric consists of a blend of fibers, usually some plastic and some natural. In order to create recycled feedstock out of that material, those fibers must be separated and cleaned of dyes, without damaging or degrading fiber quality. Across the world, researchers and manufacturers are hard at work trying to find processes that would allow textile producers to close the loop on clothing waste. One major development has come from right here at home in Nebraska.

Dr. Yiqi Yang, a researcher at UNL, recently published a paper on a cost effective method of recycling that not only recycles a wide variety of fiber blends, but also recycles the dyes. This process leaves the fiber in good condition, free of dye, and ready to be re-made into new clothing.

To learn more about this issue, and the amazing work going on here in Nebraska and across the world, check out our recent report.

Containers up for Grabs

After an inventory of items not in use, Lincoln Public Schools discovered they have a number of recycling containers in need of new homes.

Plastic and aluminum temporary wire rack recycling collection (4 hole lid) - Quantity: 9

Plastic and aluminum temporary wire rack recycling collection (3 hole lid) - Quantity: 16

Three category temporary wire rack collection (landfill, paper, bottles/cans) -Quantity: 12

Blue 13 QT. side hanging bin - Quantity: 108

Contact Mandy Bydalek mbydalek@lps.org for additional details.

Local Example of a Sustainable Food System: Interview with Rachel Schiele an Outdoor Classroom Teacher at Montessori Children’s Room in Omaha, NE

woman wearing sunglasses, standing in front of sunflowers, holding bundle of swiss chard

By Carina Olivetti

The Montessori Children’s Room in Omaha, Nebraska is a local example of a sustainable food system. Montessori Children's Room is a private school with a student population of 160, 18 teachers, and two kitchen staff. The Montessori education system is unique with its five core principles, which commonly incorporates gardening and outdoor learning in its curriculum. Student ages range from 2½-11 years old.

Rachel Schiele is the Outdoor Classroom Teacher at the Montessori Children’s Room. Her background in organic farming/ranching and home gardening prepared her well for this role. The following is a short interview with Rachel on what the Montessori Children’s Room is doing in their sustainable food system. Sharing stories is important for growing sustainable food systems and building relationships with each other.

garden scene with shades and textures of green. a winding pathway leading to a hoop house in front of some trees

What does the Montessori Children’s Room (MCR) growing space look like and what do you grow?

MCR has about a half-acre of land. A fair amount of land is dedicated to native pollinator plants. A small greenhouse is used for seed starting and cold stratifying native plants. There are 14 raised beds for growing food. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, a plethora of greens, tomatoes, peppers, squash, beans, beets, turnips, carrots, watermelon, cantaloupe, asparagus, garlic, popcorn, and broccoli, are what is typically grown. An apricot tree, apple, strawberries, and serviceberries provide perennial fruit harvest. Drip irrigation is used for efficient watering. Everything is grown organically with soil amendments of Hillside Solutions compost, feather meal, sea bird guano, and others depending on results from soil tests that Rachel and her students administer.

What does your compost system look like?

MCR contracts with Hillside Solutions for their organic recycling. Three 33-gallon trash containers are utilized for food waste and garden debris and picked up once a week. Approximately 10 bags of Hillside Solutions compost are delivered to MCR each year for soil enhancement when needed.

Hand holding monarch butterfly with a sticker tag on its wing

What are a few examples of outdoor classroom lessons?

In the summer months it is the sole responsibility of the Outdoor Classroom Teacher to maintain the MCR gardens. During the school year the children help with everything. Garden activities are modified depending on which age group has outdoor class. The students help prep beds, spread compost and other soil amendments, harvest veg, collect seeds, tag monarch butterflies, as well as start and transplant seeds/seedlings. In addition to pollinator beds there are 2 rain gardens for teaching lessons on ecosystem services. One of the ongoing projects is collecting native plant seeds, sowing them in flats, caring for the seedlings through the cold stratification period, and then using them for a plant sale fundraiser in early spring.

baskets of tomatoes, cucumbers, and potatoes on the ground in a garden

rows of lettuce and greens in a sunny garden bed

What kind of storage does your school have?

MCR has one small deep freezer and a commercial upright freezer for produce that gets preserved. This has been sufficient for the produce preserved.

What are some examples of dishes served throughout the growing season? And dishes with preserved foods?

Head Chef Margy Simons and Sous Chef Miss Andrea do an excellent job creating nutritious meals from the MCR mini farm. When greens are in season, fresh salads are served often. The chefs make various soups, casseroles, mac n cheese with squash, beets in brownies, homemade French bread, and zucchini muffins. Lots of homemade marinara and tomato-based dishes are created from the abundance of tomatoes grown. Knowing the ingredients and being creative with the dishes is important when feeding children. Putting beets in the brownies is a fantastic way to get kids familiar with less popular vegetables.

How many lbs. and what types of food did you preserve?

In 2023, 1,000 lbs. of produce were harvested. About forty percent of that produce was eaten fresh with the remainder preserved by freezing. The 2023 harvest was up 200 lbs. from the year before. Staggered planting is used for later harvest so vegetables like cucumbers can be eaten fresh when students are present. Whole Roma tomatoes, peppers, blanched beans and broccoli, shredded zucchini, beets, squash, roasted cherry tomatoes, berries, apricot with citric acid and sugar are the main fruits and veg preserved. Food in freezer bags stays good for about a year, although the school usually runs low or out before school lets out for summer.

Flower meadow with purple coneflowers, yellow black eyed susans, and purple spires of vervain

What are the major takeaways from this program?

“It is so important to show children where their food comes from and how it is grown. If I influence even just one child to have a passion for growing food and loving nature, then I’ve done my job well.” ~ Rachel Shiele

Children enjoy eating vegetables straight out of the garden. Especially, when they grew it themselves. Lessons learned outdoors in a garden or nature setting are priceless and harder to learn in books. Rachel continues to learn and adapt in each new growing season, as is certainly true for every gardener/grower out there.

A big thank you to Rachel for sharing the Montessori Children’s Room story with us!

In closing, one of the biggest topics in our changing climate is food systems. This includes but is not limited to food security, sustainable agriculture, food loss and waste, nutrition, and environment. The importance of growing and eating local foods is not only for the health of the planet but for the human body as well. Positive impacts of growing your own food are reduced carbon emissions, typically less water use, hopefully little to no use of synthetic fertilizers, better nutritional value, and better tasting food. Gardening and urban farming are at their best when paired with a composting operation. The city of Lincoln, NE developed a Local Food System Plan for 2023-2027. The four community goals are: 1. Increase and ensure access to healthy food for all. 2. Invest in a thriving local food and farm community to increase local food production and food security. 3. Promote food production practices that protect soil, water, and air. 4. Reduce food waste. The Montessori Children’s Room of Omaha, Nebraska is doing a wonderful job working towards these goals on a small scale. Imagine a Nebraska where this kind of sustainable food system is practiced widely.

If you want to get involved, share your story, or learn more about food waste reduction, composting, sustainable food systems, the Lincoln Local Food Plan, or composting, contact Carina Olivetti at colivetti@nrcne.org.

If you want to learn more about the Montessori Children’s Room or the Montessori education method, go to https://childrensroom.net/campus/# or https://amshq.org/About-Montessori/History-of-Montessori

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